Some good old fashioned thievery
by ImplicationsProblematic
Summary: Shepard reminisces about her time with Kasumi. So the idea behind this is that, sometime between ME2 and ME3, Shepard is reminiscing about her crew and describing them to someone- maybe it's Vega, or Anderson, or Kaidan even. 6 crew members down thus far!


++++++++++++++I've had such lovely feedback on these little ramblings.

So far I've done Grunt, Mordin, Jack, Zaeed and Garrus.  
Kasumi took forever for some reason.  
Hope it's okay!++++++++++++++

The first Normandy's crew wasn't exactly a standard Alliance roster. An Asari archaeologist, a Krogan mercenary, a Turian C—Sec runaway and a just—north—of—teenage Quarian? Pretty unusual. And even the Alliance crew were a rag—tag bunch really. I mean, an L2, General Williams' granddaughter, a pilot who got assigned to the ship by _stealing_ it and… well, **me**. But the SR2's crew made the old group look positively vanilla. Case and point— Kasumi Goto, master thief.

Cerberus had arranged a rendezvous on the Citadel— or they'd tried to. Kasumi is more of an _"I'll come to you"_ sort of girl, so in the end _she_ made the arrangements. Another important thing about Goto, she has a penchant for… dramatic flair— which is why her idea of a meeting was to have me recite cryptic passwords to an ad—terminal in Zakera Ward. She's a strong believer in the philosophy that you should make your own fun when you get the opportunity. Having said that, she never gets distracted from the task at hand either— as much fun as she was having toying with me, she made sure I understood that her help came in exchange for a favour. She must have been pretty confident that I'd accept her terms, because she'd already sneaked onto the ship to stash her stuff.

As I said, Kasumi is a thief. You might not have heard of her, but that's kind of the point. It's like she told me once; she's the _best_ thief in the galaxy, not the most famous. And damn, she really **is** good. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she really is the best there is— but there aren't exactly tournaments for these things, much to Kasumi's disappointment I'm sure.

I was looking forward to working with her. At that point we'd picked up Garrus, Zaeed and Mordin— in addition to Miranda and Jacob obviously— and she was… I don't know… the guys were all pretty serious. But Kasumi was a laugh right from the start. We picked up more recruits after her and, I've gotta say, she got on very well with everyone. There were some…_tensions_ in the crew for a little while— Jack and Miranda, Tali and Legion, Jacob and Thane… but Kasumi could get on with anyone. Jacob was a little unsure to start with. He might have left the Alliance for Cerberus, but he was still a very _by the book_ guy— and Kasumi was a **criminal**. But he got over that little worry very quickly— it's just really hard **not** to like Kas. It's funny actually, because she developed quite a little crush on Mr Taylor. I don't think she would ever have seriously gone for it, she just liked teasing him and de-cloaking cheekily mid-way through his work outs. Yeah, everyone got on with her— I never felt like she was going to break into my cabin and go through my stuff. I was very aware that she _could_ do that— but I trusted her.

Like I said, she was popular with everyone, but she still kept to herself most of the time. She's a pretty private person despite her love of finding out other people's secrets. She hung out in the port observation lounge, I'd stop by and we'd talk— a lot of the time Jack would come too. We killed a lot of FTL time just hanging out in her room. She had the coolest stuff— everything had a story. She's still a mystery to me, but we got some of her history out of her. I think it probably did her good. A lot of her stories involved her old partner, Keiji. They were partners in more than the professional sense… if you see what I mean. Very much in love was the impression I got. But, yeah… he died. _Murdered, _to be specific. And it was obviously still very difficult for her— which I suppose is why she never actually tried anything with Jacob. He was a fun distraction for her and I think he probably would have been game, but she wasn't ready to move on from Keiji.

And I guess that brings me to that favour I mentioned earlier. Like Kasumi, Keiji was a thief, but he was also a talented conman. So over the course of his career, he came across a lot of rather privileged information. And all of those secrets were stored neatly away in his graybox— or.. What's the proper name for them again? _Mnemonic neural recall stimulator_ or something? Anyway, you know what I mean, those cerebral memory implants the Systems Alliance outlawed. Keiji spent some time… aha, '_under cover'_ in the Alliance and very nearly got into some **serious shit**. But, a couple of loopholes got him out of it and the brass had no choice but to let him go. After that, he fancied some good old fashioned thievery, so he and Kasumi headed to Berkenstein. I imagine there's a lot of shit worth stealing on that planet— what is it the travel agents say? _"More glittering than diamonds, more expensive than surgery"? — _but anyway, their mark was a guy named Donovan Hock; arms dealer, smuggler… general scumbag— you know the type.

To cut a long story short, the job went to hell. Kasumi got out, but Keiji wasn't so lucky. I'm sure Hock would have killed him without the additional incentive of the graybox, but when you throw that into the mix… I still don't know exactly what Keiji knew, but Alliance secrets in someone like Hock's hands? That's not good. And God, the personal value of it… the memories. So the favour Kas wanted… we had to get the graybox back.

Hock was hosting some big do for the elegantly atrocious of the galaxy. Walking in guns blazing wasn't going to work— we didn't want to take him on, just get the graybox and get out. So we went incognito as party guests, formal wear etc. Don't laugh. I felt absurd— heels and everything. Anyway, the cover Kasumi had for me was 'Alison Gunn'. I did my best to play the part, but me and parties…

We only had the one invite, so Kas was cloaked. Like all the other guests, we brought Hock a gift— laid it down at the shrine of his ego. The present she had lined up was a gold plated, life—size statue of Saren. I told you she had a wicked sense of humour. The base of the statue was loaded with guns, armour… the stuff we'd need once we got into the vault. Of course getting into the vault was rather… complicated. Hock had a DNA scanner, password, voice scanner, kinetic barrier… the DNA was a little tricky— _seriously_ thorough housekeeping— but we got in, naturally.

You're gonna think I'm making this up, but in the vault— The Statue of Liberty's head. I shit you not. No honestly! Plus a load of other pretty unbelievable stuff. Like the **Kassa Locust**. I know right? Kasumi picked up a replica too. I gave mine to Miranda before we said goodbye. She favours a good SMG and I figured The Alliance would just take it off me— she ended up being a good friend and I kind of owed her for resurrecting me. Anyway, we also found Keiji's graybox… and were immediately confronted by an absurdly excessive hologram of Hock and Eclipse mercs.

We fought our way out of the building— ran into a tonne more mercs, couple of heavy mechs… a little hairy with just the two of us, but we could handle it. Riiiight up until Hock showed up in his gunship. That was a nightmare… the shields on that thing… I don't know what I would have done without Kas to take them out— and the way she did it… Jesus Christ… I have no idea how she did it, but the next thing I knew she was in the air, hurtling towards the gunship. No, not hurtling… it was like she was _flying_— or dancing. And then she took the shields down— again, no clue how. After that it was relatively easy to take the ship— and Hock— down. The galaxy is much better off without that bastard.

Of course we got the fuck out of there as quick as we could. Back on the Normandy, Kasumi was faced with what to do with the graybox. Keiji had left a message for her, telling her how much he loved her— really personal stuff. I felt hideously intrusive. He also asked her to destroy the device— said the information was too sensitive to risk anyone accessing it. The problem was, the graybox also contained all of his memories of their time together… Kas was reluctant to erase the data… obviously— but part of the reason Keiji wanted her to do it was to keep her safe. In the end, she decided to wipe it but I actually pressed the button— it made things a little easier I guess.

She wasn't herself for a while after that. Which isn't exactly surprising. She just needed some space— Kas is damn strong. I don't know if I'd deal with that shit as well as she did. She was back to kicking ass in no time. In particular she was a big help whenever we had to take on Geth forces. But more than anything she's a really good friend. I mean, I miss all of the crew though— even Zaeed… _grumpy bastard_.

I don't know where Kasumi will be now— she doesn't tend to sit still for long anyway. I'm pretty sure she'll be having fun though… and probably in some wildly inappropriate way.


End file.
